Chapter Eleven: Adam:

Location: Seattle, Washington

Diary Entry: Adam

Day Fifty-Two

Snow and sand do not look right together. I heard that the Canadian border doesn’t care anymore. I can’t blame the guards. What are the people going to smuggle into the country? Most of the fruits and vegetables have already been eaten by everyone in America. Drugs? Who really knows those anymore? Money is just as useless. I mean, what are you going to buy with it? Still, I am headed to Canada. Because… why not? What difference will it make? There’s just going be more sand.

Still, there’s nothing here in Seattle anymore.

I was with a small group of people. It was my girlfriend, three of our friends, and myself. Like everyone in the world, we didn’t know what to do. My girlfriend says that we should make the most of it. She always had that cheerful personality. So much so that I wanted to strangle her at times. But my girl was the one who kept us all together.

My group and I all decided to take different routes to Canada. We heard about people trying to run to the ocean. Our group ended up being divided. Brian and Al went east while Sammy went out to the ocean. It was my girlfriend and I left.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she told me. We talked about it and decided to go to Canada first and then to the ocean. We took different directions and planned to meet up again. That was ten days ago. I haven’t seen any sign of anyone I would know along my path. It feels so strange… So quiet…

The birds don’t sing anymore. We’ve already gotten used to not hearing cars going by. Most of them have rusted where they stand by this point. People have broken into them to steal whatever they could. Hell, Sammy took a pack of gum from a truck and he has never stolen anything before in his life. I took a lighter and a pack of cigarettes myself, to be honest with you. However, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when we run out of everything. Are we just going to die or resort to…?

I shudder to think about that. I don’t want to think that I could ever bring myself to that. I have never been a violent person. But people do desperate things. If it came down to it between my girlfriend and I…

I shake my head as I force myself to think about something else.

I looked around at the sand at my feet. It really doesn’t look right mixed in with this snow. What makes it worse is that the sand will remain after the snow melts. When it rains, the sand will be here. When the sun is out, the sand will be here. Day, sand sticks around. Night, the sand will be here too. We are all sick of seeing it. I heard there are scientists trying to figure out what it really is. I am waiting for them to make it disappear.

I walked up to the border of Canada early this morning. The checkpoint looked like a ghost town. I shivered as I looked around.

“Hello?” I asked. There’s only sand here too, I predicted as much. Still, I also expected to see someone, anyone here. I wonder if my girlfriend and friends made it here safely. I looked behind me. There is no point of turning around and going home. Ha, where was “home” now? It doesn’t exist anymore. Now what?

I had lowered my head when something caught my eye. I happened to look up and see a guy with a border patrol uniform staring at me from the booth. I slowly rose to my feet with big eyes. My hands dropped to my sides.

Holy…